Chris Clemens knew he had to stand out at the Royalty Fashion Show.
With $8 worth of fabric and some chicken wire he found laying around, he decided to turn himself into a mountain.
After spending five hours constructing the costume, he had half an hour left before he needed to be at the show. Clemens was rushing to become Mt. Rushmore.
"My partner [Lauren Peak-Crosley Rogers] wanted to be Lady Liberty," Clemens said, "and I didn't want to be something boring and somebody yelled out Mt. Rushmore."
Rogers and Clemens, sponsored by Beeman and DeMotte halls, were just two of the nearly 80 candidates for Homecoming Court that participated in the Royalty Fashion Show Wednesday night at Pruis Hall.
People from the 441 member audience hollered and whooped when candidates representing their organization walked on stage in their costumes. Outfits ranged from Smooth Criminals and Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy to famous couples such as Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.
The organizations come togethernot only came together on the fashion show stage but they worked together to promote the event as well, candidate Julie Elliott, sponsored by Palmer and Davidson halls, said.
"There was such a huge effort by the Homecoming committee to get us to advertise," Elliott said. "We didn't just promote ourselves, we promoted voting [for homecoming court] in general."
Because of the candidates efforts to advertise the event and to ask students to vote, they managed to get 700 more people to vote this year than last year, Melissa Kish, royalty fashion show chairwoman for the Homecoming Steering Committee, said.
Elliot and her partner Ryan Simko passed out 200 flyers around campus and made T-shirts to give away. Clemens said he put together a more targeted approach.
"I wrote a poem for girls and I made little flyers to pass out to guys," Clemens said. "I knew that [voting] was during [sorority] recruitment and girls would be going through DeHority to get to the sorority suites so I hung flyers and pictures everywhere. I probably did about 50 to 60 in the back stairwell. It was a little out of control."
Those efforts paid off when Clemens was named one of the top 10 finalists for Homecoming King and court, as decided by Online voting that took place between Sept. 13 and Sept. 17, after the fashion show.
The 10 finalists for King and Queen will attend a royalty dinner and be interviewed by a panel of judges made up of faculty and staff on Sept. 30.
The judges will choose the King and Queen and four people for each court, eliminating five of the finalists from each side. The official court will be coronated at the Homecoming Talent Show on Oct. 7 at Emens Auditorium.
"As long as I make it on the court, I don't care about the big stuff," Clemens said. "When my grandma was [a student at Ball State] she was on Homecoming Court so I just want to make her proud."
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